Pulling Strings
by katimonius REX
Summary: Severus Snape recalls a time, long ago, when he and Lily Evans were untouchable. Inseparable. Unfortunately the innocent memory doesn't remain quite so. Technically two one shots that correspond to one another, set as two separate chapters.
1. Adagio For Strings

Severus remembered. He remembered a time when he and Lily Evans had been the very best of friends. Inseparable. He remembered when she was young and naïve, vivacious and curious, and his. That was how he saw those early years, playing back those vivid memories in his mind. When she looked at him that certain way, laughing and scolding and smiling all at once, he knew it was…something. Maybe love or infatuation. He really wasn't sure. It was only because they had both been so young, only eleven, when Severus realized how important she had become to him. He had still been left untouched by some of the grief he would find in his later years, and cared so little about the importance of blood status. Back then it had been Severus and Lily, together. And it was all that mattered.

It was the spring of nineteen seventy-one, three months after Lily and Snape had met for the first time by the swings near her house. They were becoming rather close, and balanced each other well. Lily was eager and kind and fearless, completely ready to take on the world. Severus, on the other hand, was quiet and thoughtful, not to mention quite intelligent, and reigned in the feisty red-head whenever it was completely necessary – and _only_ when completely necessary. Maybe it was because he didn't want to upset her. More likely it seemed he wanted to watch her; drink her in. There was nothing quite like seeing he bright green eyes gleam with excitement, or listening to her voice grow and swell with joy as she explained he plans for the future. She wanted to live in Paris, she told him once. She wanted to see the Eiffel tower from her small, cozy apartment in the middle of the city. To wander down any back road and find secret little coffee shops where she could sit and watch people pass, guessing their stories. She wanted freedom, she informed him seriously. As much as she wanted so many other things, all she could truly ever ask for was freedom.

It was one warm spring day in nineteen seventy-one that Severus was pushing through brambles and bushes, on his way to meet his closest friend so they could go exploring. It wasn't a hobby he particularly enjoyed, exploring. Very dirty and complicated, particularly without magic. But it excited Lily enough for her to ask him to join, and he couldn't deny her a single thing if he tried, even way back then. So rather than dwelling on how many scrapes he would get, or how many times Lily would try to splash him in a brook, he continued on until he reached the bush that separated the path to his house and the path to hers, and quickly scanned the property. It took him a moment to find her in the bright sunlight, although she was generally difficult to miss. She was sitting on the grass facing away from him, and he could see that her bright red hair was pulled back into a ponytail, containing some of the fire. Severus smirked mischievously and stepped out from his hiding place, walking stealthily to keep his element of surprise.

And then he heard it.

The piece was unfamiliar, but that wasn't important. He walked slowly around to see her face, his eyes softening as he watched her play. She stumbled, of course. She had only been playing for two years, but the piece was her favorite, and she knew it almost by heart. Her eyes were closed, and he thought that the violin itself was whispering the notes into her ear, giving the music life and energy and joy. Effortless. She missed notes, carried some out too long, clipped a few she shouldn't have, and it sounded as though the instrument hadn't been tuned in quite some time. None of it mattered. None of it mattered, because it was the most beautiful thing Severus had ever heard.

A small smile lit her face as she pulled the bow lithely across the strings, feeling the music rise and fall around her, filling the air with sound. She played the final note and held it out, adding vibrato as she did. She stayed still and silent for another moment, even after the song was over, before she let out a gust of air and opened her eyes. She turned her head and saw Severus for the first time, though she didn't seem surprised. Rather, she looked pleased.

"Oh. Hello, Sev."

Severus' eyebrows shot up, but it only made him smile more as walked over to where she was sitting, joining her on the soft, lush grass. Lily still held the violin and bow in their respective hand, and as he sat down she placed them both gently on the ground at her feet. Severus looked at the instrument curiously, then turned to include her in his gaze.

"I didn't know you could play," Severus said, his voice mixed with awe and reverence and surprise. Lily gave him a mysterious smile.

"There's plenty you don't know about me."

She got up and backed away, beckoning for him to follow her across the yard. Severus gaped at her for just a minute before he scrambled into a standing position and started after her. He stopped himself before he trailed behind, decidedly turning back to pick up the instrument and its bow, bringing them with him as he stood at her side, handing both to her somewhat shyly.

"Probably shouldn't leave it on the ground..." He mumbled as he looked away, his cheeks burning slightly. Lily laughed and jabbed him playfully in the ribs with her elbow.

"It's alright Sev. You're right, of course. My mum'd kill me if anything happened to it."

She brought him to a picnic table and placed it there, pausing to run her fingers over the worn wood. "It was hers, you know. My mother's." Her matter-of-fact tone made Severus smile, and he admired the instrument silently with her. "She owned it from the time she was a girl. She had to stop though. She got into a car accident and broke her elbow, so she hasn't been able to play the same since."

Severus was ready to apologize for her, considering what her mother had lost, but there was only a hint of disappointment in her tone. It was barely a second later that she was grinning wide and pulling on Sev's wrist, dragging him back towards the woods.

"Come'on! I found a new trail and I want to see where it goes. I just didn't want you to miss out on all the fun!"

She laughed freely and began to jog, keeping him behind at a pace he couldn't quite follow. As he stumbled along he remembered the question he'd just moments ago been dying to ask and stopped on the spot, wrenching his wrist from her iron grip. She took a few extra steps before she stopped, turning to glance at him with a quirked eyebrow.

"What's the matter, Sev?"

She took a few steps toward him, her eyes gaining concern. The look seemed to warm his insides, and rather than answering her question he just smiled slightly, remaining silent. Lily stared at him, still confused.

"If you don't want to go, we don't have to. I mean, we could go to the park instead, and then we could-"

She was interrupted by Severus' voice, raised only to stop her from continuing. He stepped forward until they were only a couple of feet away, looking apologetic.

"No, no! It's not that, Lil. I can't wait to explore the trail. Really!" He blanched at her look of skepticism, shaking his hands in front of him.

"I just wanted to ask you a question is all!"

Lily narrowed her eyes suspiciously before she cocked her head slightly to the side, like a curious cocker spaniel, a smile twitching at the edge of her lips.

"Alright. What is it, then?"

He stared boldly into her green eyes, inquisitive and eager upon his face. Such blunt eye contact with anyone else would have made him blush. Severus had given up on that long ago, fortunately, and his feelings told him to stare at her as much as possible. It just couldn't hurt. After all, she was his dearest friend. He wouldn't have given that up for anything in the world. He cleared his throat, trying to appear casual as he asked, "What was that song you were playing?"

Lily opened her mouth for a second, confused by the question, and then laughed loudly.

"Is that it?" She giggled and said, "It's called Adagio for Strings."

Severus frowned, let down by the title. She'd made it sound so intense and powerful; the name just didn't suit the sound. Before he could comment, however, she continued.

"It was one of my favorite songs when I was little. See, my mum always played a tape she has of it - it's a little thing that plays music, Sev; stop looking at me like I'm a mutant cow , okay- so I've loved it forever. When mum got me lessons, I asked my teacher if I could do that piece. And he arranged it for me so I could play the violin part, _and _some of the other parts, since it's supposed to be played by a big, huge orchestra. Now I play it whenever I can."

Without waiting for any sort of reaction she snatched up his wrist and took off towards their supposed trail once again. Tripping over his own feet, clumsy and unsure, Severus barely had time to right himself before he was fumbling not far behind her.

"Well, are you out of questions now Sev?"

She craned her neck to glance over her shoulder, the twinkle in her eye sending a shiver down Severus' back. He shook his head, his black hair flying any which way as they ran.

"Of course not."

She laughed and turned away from him, letting go of his wrist to sprint forward and do another sloppy cartwheel. She came out of it wearing a broad grin and walking backwards as she beckoned him forward, her hair shining in the sunlight.

"Come'on, Sev. I don't want you going adagio on me."

He didn't understand the music joke, but without hesitating to ask what she was talking about Severus took off after her, smiling as she ran away from him. Her tennis shoes pounded along the ground and her arms pumped at her sides, while her bright ponytail bounced off of her back. And all that he could think, both in that moment and thinking back, was that he had never seen anyone or anything quite so brilliant as Lily Evans.

_Authors Note: Try not to bite, hm? At least, not TOO hard. This is my first attempt ever at anything even remotely L/S. I'm a hardcore L/J shipper, so this was out of my comfort zone, for sure. I had just stumbled upon a music challenge on HPFF some years back, and my interest was obviously piqued. This is what I got from it, although it's been edited multiple times now. I'm adding a second chapter very soon, set as a corresponding one-shot. So if you enjoyed this, keep an eye out! Much love! _


	2. Valse Triste

Six years passed at Hogwarts, slow and unforgiving. And yet Severus, whose life had become a roller coaster of drastic ups and downs, still possessed the same deep affection towards Lily Evans that he had known so little of as a child. Nearing adulthood, he was beginning to understand exactly how deeply those feelings had drilled into his very core. It had always been love; it was that unnamed feeling he had been wrestling with since their first meeting. He loved everything about Lily Evans. He adored her fiery spirit, her passion, and of course her kind heart. But it was her knack for seeing the best in people that made him truly love her. He would come to believe he was incapable of doing any good for anyone or anything, and yet she accepted him all the same. He loved it all, but nothing so much as that.

Beautiful, incredible Lily Evans would never change. Severus, on the other hand, had a great deal of changing to do.

It hadn't been sudden or unexpected. It hadn't even gone unnoticed. His slow and misguided transformation had begun somewhere in his third year, as his torments truly came to a head. He had been mocked relentlessly since his first year, by just about anyone with an ounce of cruelty in their bones; who _hadn't_ picked on the scrawny, greasy haired boy obsessed with potions? Lily. Of course Lily. She had done her best to defend him, sticking up for him whenever she found that it wouldn't cause more humiliation.

"_Need your girlfriend to fight your battles for you, Snivelly?" _

The Marauders had always been regular tormentors, and Lily rarely passed up scolding them for their cruelty. Sirius had unbelievable indifference towards the matter, but James would listen to her if he thought it would grant him a date with the fiery red head. No matter how hard Lily tried, she couldn't protect Severus from the harsh words, or later from the unrelenting spells thrown his way. When distaste turned to burning hatred and spells started to fly, Severus found a new group of so called 'friends'. Friends who would lead him far from the road Lily had tried almost desperately to pull him towards.

These friends, all of whom were intensely interested in the Dark Arts and would later becomes followers of the Dark Lord Voldemort, began to quicken the changes that Severus hadn't noticed in the first place. And from there, he could only spiral down.

* * *

It was cruel, the way the Marauders had pulled one filthy word from his mouth. One filthy word he never would have used on Lily. Not on his Lily. Or at least, he never would have before that day. Even worse was the immediate effect it had, managing to single handedly turn the one person he cared for more than anything against him. It made his disgust towards the four all the more pure, enough to send shivers of rage down his spine at the very thought.

Summer had passed quietly by, despite the several attempts that Severus had made to contact Lily. He had already apologized, multiple times, but the damage had been done. When school started up again, their sixth year, Severus made no more attempts to contact her. It had put a severe damper on his mood, and furthered his encounters with the Marauders, but he only delved deeper into his schoolwork and the dark arts to ease the loneliness.

It was by sheer chance that he made his way down the fourth floor corridor one specific Fall day, wandering with his books before a long stay in the Library. It was a generally abandoned floor, especially farther from the Library, and an excellent place to seek solitude. He had just passed the charms corridor, searching for an empty classroom to clear his head, when he slowed to a stop. The sound was faint where he had stopped, but he recognized it immediately. It was a tune. A tune he was quite familiar with, and played on an old violin.

Cautiously he went door to door, scouring for the room the music came from. Growing steadily louder with his heartbeat, Severus became certain about who he would find inside. The nervous thought slowed his step as he came to the final door in on the left, listening intently. The song was almost half over, he realized; after playing it for the first time, Severus insisted on listening to Lily play it several times more, until he had memorized the whole piece. There was no window to allow him to peer inside and see her, so it was with one huge and steadying breath that he took the handle on the door and pushed in quietly, hoping not to disturb her.

On that particular day, Severus had no such luck. Standing in front of the students desks as though playing to an audience, facing the door, it was almost impossible to sneak in unnoticed. From the moment his finger touched the handle of the door she had stopped playing, startled by the disturbance. He walked into the room slowly, almost sheepishly, his head bowed so that his greasy black hair nearly shrouded his face. With one look at him her eyes narrowed and she began to pack up, willing to escape the confrontation as quickly and quietly as possible.

Severus lifted his head, trying desperately to meet her averted eyes. A long minute passed by in silence as she stuffed her sheet music into her case, as neatly as she could without wasting time, her preparations the only sound. Twiddling his hands together nervously, Severus realized that he couldn't wait any longer to speak; she would be gone before he had a word out of his mouth, and it would be too late.

"Lily, I…" His words trailed off at her scathing look, catching him completely off guard. He had seen her overly defensive, and maybe frustrated, but never so angry.

"Severus, stop. Just…stop." She closed her violin case with a snap, resting her hands on the worn, scratched wood. She looked up to meet his gaze, her emerald eyes melting him almost at once, as they always had. But there was no warmth in them anymore – not for him. All he could find was distance, as if she was pulling slowly away from everything they had been.

"I trusted you." It was all she said for a long moment, tracing a pattern on the wood of her case. "I guess I should say, really, that I trusted the person I thought that you were."

Her words hurt, stinging his pride and his heart equally. He wanted to explain himself, his eyes alone pleading to see if she would understand as he thought she might. But that one nasty word, a word beckoned forth by the Marauders, had taken the affection out of her tone and out of her eyes, and replaced them with something unbearably painful.

Disappointment.

"You were one of my closest friends, Sev. Severus." She caught herself slipping with her affectionate nickname for him; her old nickname, anyway. She wished there was another way, and more than anything wished that she could believe the apologies he made, but she simply couldn't afford. Not with his nasty Death Eater in training friends and his love of the Dark Arts poisoning the young, strong minded boy she had grown to care for. "You were one of my closest friends, and you betrayed me. I'm sorry; it's just too late to take it back."

She picked up her case from the desk and walked decisively from the room, although a stunned and devastated Severus swore he spotted a tear pooling in the corner of her eye as she walked past. He turned slightly to watch her fiery red hair disappear around the corner, gripping the side of one of the desks so hard his knuckles turned white.

Slipping into the seat closest to him, slipping his head into his hands, Severus came to the agonizing realization that he had lost the only girl he could ever love.

_A/N: So...ouch, right? That took a turn for the depressing. I didn't want it to go too dark, but it just had to be this way! I'm sorry Snily shippers! I would love to hear what you guys thought of it, so any reviews, good, bad, or ugly, are so amazingly appreciated! Much love!_


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